As soon as I reach the car, I dial directory assistance again. There's a listing for a Willie Pinder on Gaylor Street. This time I dial the number myself.

"Yeah?" says a coarse voice.

"Is Willie there?"

"This Willie."

I hang up.

Gaylor Street is in a black neighborhood off the road that leads up to the city cemetery. It takes several trips through blocks of small, brightly colored houses, but I finally find the ex-chief's Dodge pickup parked on the street. A cracked pad of cement leads to the rear of the house. I drive around and park near Pinder's back porch. It's fully screened, with rust eating the black wire in big orange patches.

"Who the hell are you?" shouts a hostile voice. "You just call me on the telephone?"

I wave broadly at the dark screen. For all I know, I'm looking into the barrel of a shotgun. "I'm Penn Cage. I'm looking for the former chief of police, Willie Pinder."

"Who you work for, chump?"

The screen door opens with a screech of protesting springs, and a big black head appears in the opening. The sleepy-eyed face says late fifties, with some rough years on the back end.

"Car like that, you ain't no process server. Must be a lawyer. You work for my ex-old lady?"

"No. My name's Penn Cage. If you're Willie Pinder, I want to ask you about the Del Payton murder."

At the words "Del Payton" the sleepy eyes wake up. "I'm Willie," he says, looking closely at me.

"You got my name, right?"

"Trouble. That's your name."

"Will you talk to me?"

"Sure." Pinder laughs. "I might be hearing your last words. Come on up."

He holds the door open for me. Three steps lead up to the porch, the kind of weed-grown slat steps that snakes like to lie under in the heat. In one bound I am up and through the door, which slaps shut behind me with a bang like a pistol shot.

"Porch is far enough," says Pinder. "Hotter inside anyway. AC's busted. You want a beer?"

"Sure." I try not to glance at my watch; it can't be eleven a.m. yet.

Pinder goes inside and returns with two sweating cans of Schaeffer. He hands me one, then sits beside me in a green iron lawn chair, pops the top off his can, and drinks.

"So you're retired now?" I say, opening my beer.

He laughs again. "That don't quite seem to say it. I'm fucked now. How about that?"

I'm not sure how to proceed. I don't want the man's life story, but neither do I want to offend him. Thankfully, Pinder spares me.

"You the crazy man who popped off about Del Payton in the paper?"

"I mentioned the case."

"Case? Ain't no case on Del Payton."

"What about a file, then? There must have been a police file."

He takes another long swig of Schaeffer. "I was pretty busy back then. It was all I could do to hold the goddamn place together."

"I'm sure. Still, I'd think you might have wanted to check some things the white chiefs had let slide for too long."

Pinder sniffs and looks through the rusted screen. "I worked in that department eleven years, and I never saw no Payton file. Didn't think there was one. But when the old chief gave me the combination to the station safe, and I opened it up, there it was. Sitting on the bottom of a stack of insurance policies. Just like that. First day on the job."

"Did the police seriously investigate the case in sixty-eight?"

He smiles. "In 1968 the city slogan was 'Natchez, Where the Old South Still Lives.' It looked like they investigated. There was lots of confidential-informant reports, rumors tracked down, stuff like that."

"Any suspects?"

"A couple."

"Who?"

He smiles enigmatically. "You know, I might ought to check the file. My memory ain't what it used to be."

Something quivers in my chest. "How can you check the file?"

"Easy. I got it inside."

Jesus. "You made a copy?"

"Nope. I got the original. Took it when they screwed me out of my job."

I feel like hugging him. "May I see it?"

"I ain't no loan library, boy. I think we're talking about a rental situation here."

"How much?"

Pinder's face goes blank as he computes a price. "Five hundred," he says finally, a note of challenge in his voice. "And you read it right here in front of me."

When I think of what I just paid Ray Presley for my father's .38, I feel like laughing. "A thousand," I counter. "But I take the file with me. I'll photocopy it and get the original back to you within twenty-four hours."

Pinder has lost a little of his studied calm. "How 'bout two thousand?"

"What's in the file? How long is it?"

"About twenty-five pages. Plenty of names in there, if that's what you're after."

"Any mention of Judge Marston in it? He was D.A. back then."

Something ticks in the ex-chief's face. "That motherfucker in there."

"Two thousand it is."

His head slides back on his neck, his eyes full of suspicion. "I don't want no check, now."

"You get the file, I'll get the cash."

"You got it here?"

"Oh, yeah. Get the file."

While Pinder goes inside, I go to the car and open the spare tire well, count two thousand dollars from the remaining twenty-five, and return to the porch. Shuffling and sliding sounds come from inside the house, as though Pinder is moving furniture. Then the door bangs open and he reappears with a worn manila folder in his hand. I hand him the cash, and he takes it, but he doesn't pass me the file. He sits down again and drinks from his beer can.

"You ain't asked me if I solved the case or not."

"Did you?"

"No." He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. "But not because it ain't solvable. I kept that file close to my vest, man. Didn't tell no white officers nothin' 'bout it. Told a couple of black ones I trusted I was gonna be working the case real quiet. One week later somebody sent me a message."

"What kind of message?"

"They sent a man to talk to me. A man I hated but wasn't about to ignore."

"Who was he?"

"Ray Presley."

I try to keep my composure, but Pinder cannot fail to notice the thunderous effect the name has on me. "I know Presley," I say carefully. "He was somehow involved in the original case."

"That's right. And that son of a bitch'll kill a man like picking off a scab. He's killed for less than what you just give me."

"Did he threaten you over the Payton case?"

"Not the way I expected. If he had, I'd have thrown him in a cell. He'd been to Parchman by then, and I was still riding my high horse. He didn't say, 'Stay out of this or you might wind up dead.' No, he said, 'I hear you're thinking about looking into the Del Payton murder, Willie. I worked that case myself in sixty-eight, worked it hard, and just about the time I thought we was getting somewhere, somebody told me to leave it alone. And I did. I left it alone. I was white and I wanted to solve that bombing, but I let it go. You ought to think about that.' "

"What do you think he meant? Who was he talking about?"

"Don't know." Pinder's voice softens, becomes vulnerable. "But anybody who could put fear into Ray Presley scared me plenty. My kids was still living with me then, and I wasn't about to watch them die for my pride. Or black pride, or whatever you want to call it. I couldn't even trust the brothers in my own department. How far was I gonna get? Del Payton was gonna be just as dead either way."

"Was it the Klan, you think?"

"The Klan? Shit. Klan wouldn't scare Ray Presley. Those kluckers scared of him. He did shit them crackers only talked about."

"Could it have been the FBI?" I ask, recalling Lutjens's story of the sealed file.

A funny gleam comes into Pinder's eyes. "Why you ask that?"

"Is it possible?"

"Anything's possible. The feds and the local cops didn't get on too good then. Not much better now, really. But why they'd warn Presley off. . . don't make no sense. Hoover hated Martin Luther King. But Del didn't have nothing to do with no big-time peoples like that." Pinder stands suddenly and drops the file in my lap. "We finished here."

Despite this strong hint to leave, I open the file. The first page is headed: supplementary investigation report, and dated 5-15-68. Beneath this is typed: Delano Payton Murder Bombing. Then come four handwritten paragraphs that appear to detail an anonymous phone call. The signature beneath them reads, Patrolman Ray Presley.

"You can do your reading at home," Pinder says. "I'm goin' fishin'. Gonna spend the afternoon forgettin' I ever saw you."

I stand and shake his hand. "I appreciate the help, Chief. Don't spend it all in one place."

He chuckles. "Hey, I got an old bulletproof vest I can sell you. Wanna take a look?"

"I don't plan to need it." I push open the screen door and walk quickly down the steps. "I'll drop the original back tomorrow."

"Keep it. I don't want no part of that no more."

"I never saw you." I put one leg into the BMW. "Hey ... if you really gave up on the case, why'd you steal the file when you left?"

Pinder stands motionless in the open doorway. "Get a little of my own back, I guess. I knew I'd be the last black chief for a long time." He smiles oddly, as though he has just seen something in a new light. "Maybe that file's been waiting here for you all this time. Mysterious ways, right? Maybe the bastards won't get you after all."

I give Pinder a salute. "Hope they're biting today, Chief."

He winks at me. "They biting every day, if you know where to look."

CHAPTER 16.

The Payton house is a typical rural home, built with cheap materials on concrete blocks, but better maintained than most. Lovingly tended flower beds border the front, concealing the dark crawl space beneath the structure. The cars in the driveway are probably worth more than the house, but at least the nearest neighbor is fifty yards up the road.

Georgia Payton sits beneath a large pin oak, rocking slowly in a white cotton dress. She lifts a hand as I pull into the driveway, but she does not get up.

I walk over to say hello before going to the front door. "Hot one, isn't it?"

She cackles at me. "I lived three-quarters of my life without no air conditioning. The Lord's breeze be good enough for me."

"Mr. Cage?"

Althea Payton is beckoning to me from the door. She wears navy shorts and a red blouse tied at the waist. She looks like she's been gardening.

"Come in out of that heat!" she calls. "Georgia's fine out there."

I smile at the old woman, then cross the drive and follow Althea into the house.

"Georgia's like an old loggerhead turtle sunning itself on a rock," she says. "I asked her to stay outside while we talk. She can be a little hard to handle. Have a seat."

I sit on a flame-print love seat, and Althea takes a cloth-covered easy chair to my right. The living room holds old but clean furniture, all of it arranged around a new television set. Dozens of framed family photos hang on the wall behind the TV. I look away when I realize I'm staring at a wedding photo of Del and Althea. They look young and happy, destined for anything but what happened to them in the spring of 1968.